With the proliferation of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices in commercial applications over the last decade and a half, various methods to leverage the positioning capability in mobile devices to perform geographically-based functions have emerged. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,164,986 discloses a method and system to track devices and ensure their route adherence via geofencing. With the proliferation of location capabilities in wireless networks and handsets, methods have also emerged to extend such geographic locating capabilities to cellular devices and leverage information that may exist in the wireless network. U.S. Pat. No. 7,254,388 discloses a system for mobile station-assisted triggers and service methods wherein a location assistant on the handset (e.g., a module and application) plays an assisting role in simplifying and making more efficient the task of identifying whether the mobile device approached, entered or exited a certain geographical zone, consequently triggering certain actions. Further U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,848,765 and 7,870,229 have extended these concepts for location-based services (LBS), such as for the support of location-based advertising or geographic zone-based services. U.S. Pat. No. 8,019,532 focuses on defining a specific boundary (e.g., a polygon or shape) about a point of interest (POI) on a map for the purposes of offering services to a mobile device, in particular a smartphone with location determination capabilities and the ability to save such contours for the purposes of acting upon them.
Common to the above-mentioned inventions is the important role played by the mobile device in actively defining the geographical boundary and in leveraging the device's intelligence in reducing the amount of required communication and location determination transactions. Those transactions are required to support and operate the intended application, such as geographically-based services or alerts.
The potential lack of mobile device sophistication (e.g., no Smartphone, no GPS, or GPS not enabled) or desire for active participation (e.g., via downloading a location-based application to the handset) implies an increased need for location platform intelligence and actions to communicate with and to locate the mobile device. This also implies an increased interaction with the wireless network. Whether it is a call or a data session for communication or a “location dip” to locate the subscriber, these transactions have an associated cost to the application service provider, wireless carrier and possibly the end user of the application, especially if they need to be done liberally or repeatedly. They can easily reduce the business value of the service or feature offered by the service provider.
The management and optimization of these underlying transactions is critical when the subject location based service is implemented with almost exclusive reliance on the server side capability, with minimal participation from or reliance on the mobile device, as envisioned in various embodiments of the present invention.